In the Mouth of Madness (1994) – Film Review

Director: John Carpenter
Cast: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow
Certificate: 15

By Sarah Morgan

With Halloween just around the corner, there can be no better time to watch a horror movie directed by John Carpenter, right?

After all, this was the man who breathed new life into the genre via classics such as The Thing and, of course, his low-budget masterpiece, which bears the name of the season itself.

But if you’re not in the mood for watching Michael Myers get up to all sorts of murderous mischief, fret not because another chiller from Carpenter is heading our way, fully restored in glorious 4K.

By the time that In the Mouth of Madness was released in 1995, the auteur was a fully paid-up member of the cult movie-making club, having also added the likes of Starman, Christine, Big Trouble in Little China and They Live to his impressive CV.

“Dark forces”

He’d also made Memoirs of an Invisible Man in 1992, which teamed him with actor Sam Neill; the pair clearly got along, because the New Zealander takes the lead here too, this time playing hard-bitten and cynical insurance investigator John Trent, who is on the trail of missing author Sutter Cane.

Joining him on his quest is book editor Linda Styles, and their journey will be far from easy – various disturbing events take place before, during and after they track Cane down to a seemingly quiet and genteel rural town.

However, beneath its banal facade lurk dark forces, and Trent begins to realise nothing – including what he believed to be reality – is quite what it seems.

Written by Michael De Luca, who was at the time the President of New Line Cinema, the most fun to be had while watching the movie is spotting the homages to various horror classics, including those by HP Lovecraft and Nigel ‘Quatermass’ Kneale – if you take a shot of an alcoholic drink whenever you spot one, chances are you’ll be sloshed within the first half an hour of the film’s running time.

“Fascinating”

Neill is usually a wonderful actor, but he plays it a little too large here. Supporting actors Julie Carmen and Jürgen Prochnow lack subtlety too, with only veteran star Charlton Heston, as Cane’s publisher, keeping his feet firmly on the ground.

Carpenter completists will undoubtedly want to see it, but it’s far from his best work – it will be Halloween this fan reaches for on October 31st.

There are, however, special features aplenty, including a fascinating interview with the director’s wife and producer Sandy King.

Sarah Morgan( Writer )

Sarah Morgan studied film journalism at post-graduate level with the BFI and has been writing about TV and film for PA Media’s newspaper, magazine and new media customers since 1996. She’s also written for a wide range of other publications, both online and in print, including the book Offbeat and Intermission magazine, and is a regular contributor to the Talking Pictures TV podcast. When she isn’t watching movies, she’s collecting and reading vintage crime and horror paperback books or, for her sins, watching her beloved Sheffield Wednesday.

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